late. ‘Women always do.’
‘It would be none of her concern.’
‘I could arrange to give you money now if you stayed in Antioch.’
‘I don’t want to stay here.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Here, I am a dancing girl, a high-class whore. In England I can invent my own past — a crusader’s widow, a wealthy pilgrim travelling with an armed group for safety. Why,’ she added mockingly, ‘you could even find me a rich husband if we both tell the right kind of lies.’
‘I suppose I could.’ His tone parodied hers. He wondered how Elene would react to the existence of this predatory lioness of a woman in his life if he chose to bring her with him. He needed time to think away from the disturbing closeness of her body.
‘Besides, I want to see my father’s homeland,’ she added on a less challenging note.
‘Renard, have you … oh.’
Adam de Lacey paused, and clearing his throat, made to retreat.
‘No, it’s all right. I wanted a word with you anyway.’
‘Oh?’ He gave Olwen a thoughtful look.
‘We’ll talk later about this.’ Renard kissed her again, with dismissal.
‘It is very simple,’ she said. ‘If you leave me behind, you might as well put a dagger through my body now and throw me in the Orontes.’ Turning on her heel she stalked out.
Renard stared after her. Adam uttered a low whistle. ‘Woman trouble?’ he enquired, and picked up Renard’s sword to scrutinise the oiled edges.
‘She’s with child,’ Renard said.
Adam sighted along the fuller with one eye closed. ‘She knows it for certain?’
‘So she claims.’
‘Yours?’
Renard flashed him a startled glance. ‘You think she’s foisting a cuckoo on me?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Adam put down the sword and after a pause for consideration said, ‘I think that more than likely it is yours, and more than likely it is deliberate. Women of her trade know how to avoid such trouble. Even now there are potions she could drink if she so willed.’
‘You’re very knowledgeable for one who’s lived so pure a life,’ Renard growled.
Adam gave him a rueful smile. ‘I am married to your sister and that makes up for whatever I missed in my youth.’
Renard snorted.
‘Heulwen learned the herbal arts from your mother — all of them. Why do you think we only have Miles and the twins? And not because we frequently practise continence or Onan’s sin. Mark me, that girl of yours knows all about the application of moss soaked in vinegar and beeswax plugs, else she would have fallen long before now.’
Renard stared at Adam as if he had never seen him before. ‘Dear God,’ he said softly.
‘I agree a little prayer at the same time doesn’t go amiss,’ Adam said drily. ‘What are you going to do?’
Renard scraped his fingers through his hair and sighed. ‘I wish I knew. I could leave her behind, but if I did my conscience would gall me like a hair shirt. Whatever the manner of her scheming, I cannot throw her back on to the street and leave her to face the consequences.’
‘You could buy her off.’
‘She says she wants to see her father’s country, and that once in England she can make a new life.’
‘As an acting mistress or as a brood mare to be pensioned off when she foals? You’ll have too much on your trencher already without a sour serving of domestic war in your own household.
‘I know, I know!’ Renard kicked bad-temperedly at a cracked floor tile. A chip flew off and skittered across the room. ‘How is Elene likely to take to Olwen’s presence?’
Adam rubbed his jaw. ‘I don’t know. She’s a practical lass for all her soft heart. Probably she will accept Olwen and the babe with reasonable grace providing you keep them discreetly out of the way … but I only say probably. She has been trained by your mother, who is a formidable woman.’
Renard laughed humourlessly. ‘I doubt that Elene or my mother will be any match for Olwen. If I was wise, I’d bring her to England, make sure she was safely delivered, and then pay her to keep her distance. The problem is, I don’t know if I’m capable of keeping mine.’
Chapter 6
Judith, Lady of Ravenstow, genuflected to the small altar and stood up. Her knees were stiff from kneeling too long, although the discomfort began to ease as she walked slowly to the chapel door. She was fortunate and as yet did not suffer from the severe aches and pains of encroaching years unless the weather was particularly damp, and it had been a dry autumn thus far, praise God.
In the ward some women were dipping rush wands into a vat of warm tallow to make lights for the dark months ahead. Another group from the kitchens was organising to go out berrying on the common grazing. Judith listened to the chatter of the women and wished that she could share their high spirits. Berries were a late harvest gift, excellent preserved or stewed with apples and spices, or served tart with the roasts. They were also a reminder of how swiftly the year was advancing; how fast time was running out.
Two children came skipping across the ward towards her with their nurse puffing in pursuit. Judith regarded her twin seven-year-old granddaughters. Juditta, her namesake and the older by half an hour, was the taller of the two, with her mother’s red-gold hair and her father’s tawny eyes. Rhosyn was more daintily made with fine features drawn in shades of olive and brown.
‘May we go berrying with Hilda and the others, Belmere?’ Juditta pleaded breathlessly. ‘We’ll wear our oldest gowns, I promise.’
Judith considered the two upturned smiling faces and then the beet-red countenance of their gasping nurse. ‘Berrying?’ She had to hide her smile. ‘When I see you have been bedevilling poor Adela into a state of collapse?’
Juditta looked at the rumpled, dusty hem of her gown and shuffled her feet.
‘We didn’t mean to, Belmere,’ said Rhosyn, giving her an incorrigible grin.
‘I said that they weren’t to disturb you, madam, that you were at your prayers,’ Adela panted, and pressed her hand to the stitch in her side.
‘But we saw you across the bailey so we knew you must have finished,’ Rhosyn said triumphantly and smiled at her nurse before looking again at her grandmother. ‘Please may we go?’
Judith eyed the kitchen women with their baskets. ‘I suppose so,’ she said after deliberation. ‘But don’t wander away from the main party. Stay near Adela or Hilda and do not even think of going near the river!’ She wagged her index finger in warning.
‘Yes, Belmere!’ they chorused in unison and whirled.
‘Walk, don’t run!’ cried Judith, and bit her lip, torn between pain and laughter as she watched them cross the bailey to one of the towers, dragging their poor nurse along as though they were a couple of hound puppies on a leash. She could remember how it felt to be scolded for running when she should walk, could remember sneaking off to the stables or hiding in the guardroom where she had cozened de Bec, the constable, into teaching her how to use a dagger. So near and yet so far away. It was the same riverbed but different water. She was in her fifty-sixth year and Guyon would be sixty-nine in the spring. Only sometimes spring did not come.
The girls returned with Adela and, clad in their oldest gowns, joined the berry-pickers. Their laughter was as clear and careless as the light chime of bridle bells. Rhosyn waved to her as they walked towards the outer bailey. Judith smiled and waved in reply and followed them at a slower pace until she reached the castle garden.
Guyon was there, sitting on his favourite turf seat beside the rose hedge, playing a game of tables with the girls’ older brother, Miles. The boy heard her first with the quick ears of the young. He was almost eleven now, his
